To me this is a weekend to reflect back on the family we have lost (Especially
close family). My mother goes around to each of the graves and puts flowers on the graves… which is comforting to her – knowing that there is one day out of the year that the graves are decorated. For me this is more a long holiday where at some point I reflect on the family I have lost. My close family are in my memories every day, so it’s hard to say that one day is any more special than others.
Memories of my grandmother come to me when I sew, when something special happens in the boys lives (especially Kristopher), even certain foods I make. I miss her all the time! Big things like the fact that she never met Konnor or little things like that she will never make him a sock monkey…. this next weekend and that she will miss Kris’ graduation.
A barbie wedding outfit my grandmother made that I have displayed in a shadow box.
My grandmother was wonderful at sewing, I really wish I had taken the time to listen when she had tried to teach me…. and let on more that I was listening. She explained grainline, I don’t know how many times. I’ve since looked it up to refresh my memory, but I remember her trying to explain it – and my ‘Why does it matter?’ As for the sock monkeys, I’ll never forget her story of taking them to my cousins in Texas and her luggage getting lost. – “Is there anything unique in your luggage that will help identify it?” – “Yes, There are three monkeys in my suitcase”.
She survived two husbands and all her brothers and sisters, and was still in her right mind when we lost her. Just one day she was here, and the next she wasn’t. She did everything from own a bar to teach kindergarten and was the only one of her siblings to go to high school. Yes, I think she was pretty amazing. My grandfather drown when my mother was about 3 and my grandmother had left her job as a teacher to marry him. So she was forced to move back home with my great grandmother.
My mother tells the story of my grandmother meeting my second grandfather. He saw her waiting bar at the bar she had bought…. and he told my Uncle Ervin he was going to marry her. She told him ‘Like Hell you Will!”. She said she was married to one drunk and she wasn’t going to do it again. My grandfather Wakeland then cleaned up his act and she married him. (By cleaned up I mean not around her, there was a story about my grandmother trying to bean him with a marble ashtray when he came home drunk once). I also remember something about a footrace but that story I don’t remember clearly.
I would say that I miss my grandmother the most each day, but on days when I reflect back I miss my close aunts and uncles too. Most of my other grandparents were gone before I was born other than my grandfather Richter and he died when I was younger making my memories of him much slimmer.
